For the first time, a study reveals the northern Atlantic areas where oil-derived waste is much more dangerous for marine life

A whale forages for food in the ocean waters: large cetaceans are among the animals most threatened by plastic pollution (Photo: Envato)

A new study by Plymouth Marine Laboratory reveals the five regions of the Atlantic Ocean whose plastic waste most severely threatens marine megafauna.

Le five high risk areas are distributed from one end of theNorth Atlantic: here the risk of becoming entangled and suffocated by nets, bags and food packaging is very high, especially for seabirds and cetaceans, but also for corals and mangrove forests.

For the first time scientists have managed to reconstruct the very long journey of plastic, and there is no shortage of surprises: if the mountains of marine waste that infest the US coasts largely arrive from the federal states, the situation in the Gulf of Mexico and the Azores does not seem at all linked to "internal consumption". The plastic that suffocates whales and dolphins, essentially, comes from very far away.

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The plastic waste that pollutes the Atlantic Ocean travels thousands of kilometers and accumulates in 5 particularly at-risk areas (Photo: Johannes Geiger/Wikipedia)

Atlantic, waste travels thousands of kilometers

That of plastic waste that suffocate the world's oceans is a problem with almost boundless contours: it is estimated that only in 2016 did they enter into circulation in aquatic ecosystems between 19 and 23 million metric tons of plastic waste. And estimates predict that this figure will triple by 2030.

About 80 percent of plastic pollution in the sea consists of waste of terrestrial origin: plastic bags, food packaging, disposable cutlery and other single-use items are the most common. The problem is made particularly serious by the fact that these objects also travel for thousands of kilometers due to the effect of ocean currents, and are therefore extremely difficult to monitor and manage.

How do you explain Samantha Garrard of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, “it has been shown that i plastic waste coming from Indonesia they traveled over 4.000 km to the Seychelles”, and this is not an isolated case.

To be over 4.000 marine species are at risk, some of which are particularly sensitive to the effects of plastic pollution, which It's not just about fishing nets"Animals can also become entangled in land-based plastics, such as plastic bags, Frisbees, potato nets, rubber bands and other circular plastics”, explains Garrand.

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Spatial risk assessment of land-based plastic waste and risk to marine megafauna and key coastal habitats in the North Atlantic, including identification of 5 high risk zones (Garrard et al., Science of The Total Environment 2024)

The 5 high risk areas of the North Atlantic

The team of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory led by Garrard modeled plastic transportation from 16 countries bordering the Atlantic north, releasing billions of virtual plastic particles from rivers between 2000 and 2015. After aanalysis lasted 15 years, the model showed where plastic accumulated floating transported by surface currents and wind.

"Our research highlighted five high-risk areas: the US Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the United Kingdom, the French Atlantic and the Portuguese Azores”, explains Samantha Garrard.

The study assessed the risks of plastic waste for the main groups of marine megafauna (birds, cetaceans, elasmobranchs such as sharks and rays, turtles, seals and sea lions, manatees and dugongs, tunas and marine fish) and for a selection of natural shallow water habitats particularly important from an ecological point of view, such as coral reefs, mangrove forests and kelp beds.

"To assess the risk”, explains Garrard, “we mapped the vulnerability and distribution of each megafauna group or habitat to plastic abundance. Each point on the map was assigned a risk score from zero to five. The higher risk occurred in areas where large numbers of vulnerable animals or habitats it overlapped with high concentrations of plastic".

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Where does the plastic that pollutes the oceans today come from?

During the investigation, researchers found that much of the plastic waste causing risks in UK waters originates from British rivers. On the contrary, in other high-risk areas, such as the Azores and the Gulf of Mexico, plastic mainly comes from other regions. According to estimates, “More than 99 percent of plastic waste in the Azores comes from other countries, mainly from the Caribbean islands and the United States".

Plastic's ability to travel enormous distances makes it an even more difficult pollutant to monitor and manage: “It is estimated that more than 90 percent of plastic waste in the Dominican Republic and Haiti is mismanaged”, explains the researcher, and this has the potential to cause damage on the other side of the Atlantic.

Therefore the Global Treaty on Plastics, whose negotiations are expected to be concluded by the end of this year, is of primary importance for the environmental protection: in addition to reducing plastic consumption and waste, it provides active support to help low-income nations, such as those in the Caribbean, to implement measures for the correct disposal of plastic materials. "The identification of high risk areas”, continues Garrard, “it will also help prioritize areas where interventions and monitoring should be targeted".

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The results of the study: the animals and habitats most at risk

I study results of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory highlight that marine animals are most at risk birds, cetaceans, turtles and elasmobranchs. Sheet plastics, like plastic bags and food wrappers, were the type of land-based plastic waste most commonly ingested by most marine megafauna, with the exception of seabirds, who are generally more exposed to the risk of ingesting fragments of hard plastic.

The habitats most at risk, however, are mangroves and coral reefs, both essential as they provide protection to coasts threatened by erosion and refuge and nesting areas for marine animals.

The entanglement of fragments of plastic materials, in fact, causes breakages and diseases in corals and can break mangrove branches and roots. This led to a frequent mortality of corals and a notable reduction in mangroves.

As Garrand, first author of the study, explains, “These findings highlight the potential of spatial risk assessment analyzes to determine the location of high-risk areas and understand where monitoring and management of plastic debris should be prioritized, enabling more efficient deployment of interventions and mitigation measures".

What is certain is that global measures such as the Plastics Treaty must be accompanied by consumer choices, which should be increasingly devoted to reuse and recycling of plastic. Marine fauna awaits good news. And they can only come from us.

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A Cory's shearwater hunts in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Azores: the Portuguese archipelago is among the most risky areas for marine fauna (Photo: Jules Verne Times Two/Wikipedia)